Original layout for the scene known as Stick City, taken from a detail of an original PK work house of an Opera Bouffe

Klee was a serious opera lover. The scene before stick city is another interpretation of house of an opera bouffe.

The characters in this scene were taken from studies I made while researching Klee's work at the Kunstmuseum in Bern. I wasn't allowed to touch the original sketches which were ceremoniously removed from their tissuepaper wrapping by a curator in white cotton gloves. Many of the curious characters in the film came from this source, which is why they are less recognisable as Klee's work.